Friday, April 29, 2011

Designer of the Month: Eero Saarinen

Week 4: the Miller House in Indiana and the TWA Terminal

As promised, for this last week's look at Eero Saarinen's architecture, I'm going to take you in two very different directions: first, to one of Saarinen's most notable domestic structure and then to New York for what is, if not the most famous airline terminal, than at least the most recognizable.

While Saarinen had designed private residences before Irwin Miller's commission in 1953, as images of the Miller House in Columbus, Indiana home show, its elegant composition and richness of detail make it one of Saarinen's major achievements.[1] This building, completed in 1957, underscores Saarinen's ability to advance modernist ideas of the time, such as the concept of the open floor plan, continuity between exterior and interior design elements and the use of industrial building methods and materials in residential architecture, while, with its ample budget, similarly served as a showcase for Saarinen to work on a grand scale, with rich materials.[2] The house is a fantastic example of Saarinen's search for a total environment, involving numerous collaborations and combining not only architecture, but landscape and interior design as well.[3]

Is that not the most incredibly lush living room you've ever seen? Designed largely as an open pavilion with private suites at each corner, Saarinen placed spare steel columns that terminated in open capitals, which were linked to regularly spaced skylights, creating an effect where the light itself delineates different parts of the house.[4] In this way, the open floor plan could remain open, suggesting separate spaces without the actual physical barriers. Saarinen collaborated with designer Alexander Girard to create the interiors, for which seasonal moods were effected with changeable covers and accessories, and Dan Kiley on the expansive gardens.[5]

Although Saarinen truly went above and beyond in his design for the Miller House, it was with his 1956 commission for the Trans World Airlines Terminal (TWA) at John F. Kennedy Airport (originally, Idlewild) in New York that provided him the opportunity to address building types that were not only new for his firm, but that were relatively new to architecture in general.[6] It was such a notable work in terms of Saarinen's exploration of plastic form that critic Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. described it as "one of the crisp peaks...of modern architecture...[and] the best testimony why, when Saarinen died, architecture lost one of its chief American masters."[7]

The challenge of the Trans World Airlines terminal was twofold. One, to create, within the complex of terminals that makes up Idlewild, a building for TWA which would be distinctive and memorable...

Two, to design a building in which the architecture itself would express the drama and specialness and excitement of travel. Thus, we wanted the architecture to reveal the terminal, not as a static, enclosed place, but as a place of movement and transition.

Therefore, we arrived at this structure, which consists essentially of four interacting barrel vaults of slightly different shapes, supported on four Y-shaped columns. Together, these vaults make a vast concrete shell, fifty feet high and 315 feel long, which makes a huge umbrella over all the passenger areas....we wanted an uplift. For the same reason, the structural shapes of the columns were dramatized to stress their upward-curving sweep. The bands of skylights, which separate and articulate the four vaults, increase the sense of airiness and lightness.[8]

While certainly cutting-edge in both concept and form, nothing about the project ever quite worked out as planned. Movement problems plagued the operational premise upon which the building had been conceived, causing moving pavements to be discarded and bridgeways completed as simple tunnels.[9] Even the concrete shells didn't work out as planned, with necessary changes making the building heavier, and steel balustrades with closely packed rails breaking up the flow of space in the interior.[10] Nevertheless, it was a grand structure when finally completed in 1962, just one year after Saarinen's death.

TWA halted operations in 2001, at which point the terminal was shuttered.[11] Three years ago, however, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began a $20 million renovation on the terminal that was recently completed, and are specifically looking for a hotel to fill the grand space.[12]

[11] Tony Gervino, "Look: The T.W.A. Terminal Reborn," in The New York Times Magazine, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/20/magazine/look-twa-terminal.html?ref=kennedyinternationalairportnyc (accessed April 18, 2011).

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wait...who writes this stuff?

Hello! I'm Sarah.
This little blog is my excuse to write about some of the great artists, craftsmen and designers out there, and to share all of the miscellaneous goodness that I come across. These are the things that excite and inspire me. Thanks for stopping by.